Mike Villani Mike Villani

Acronyms A-Z Cybersecurity

  • AAA Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting

    ACL Access Control List

    AES Advanced Encryption Standard

    AES-256 Advanced Encryption Standards 256-bit

    AH Authentication Header

    AI Artificial Intelligence

    AIS Automated Indicator Sharing

    ALE Annualized Loss Expectancy

    AP Access Point

    API Application Programming Interface

    APT Advanced Persistent Threat

    ARO Annualized Rate of Occurrence

    ARP Address Resolution Protocol

    ASLR Address Space Layout Randomization

    ATT&CK Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge

    AUP Acceptable Use Policy

    AV Antivirus

  • BASH Bourne Again Shell

    BCP Business Continuity Planning

    BGP Border Gateway Protocol

    BIA Business Impact Analysis

    BIOS Basic Input/Output System

    BPA Business Partners Agreement

    BPDU Bridge Protocol Data Unit

    BYOD Bring Your Own Device


  • CA Certificate Authority

    CAPTCHA Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart

    CAR Corrective Action Report

    CASB Cloud Access Security Broker

    CBC Cipher Block Chaining

    CCMP Counter Mode/CBC-MAC Protocol

    CCTV Closed-circuit Television

    CERT Computer Emergency Response Team

    CFB Cipher Feedback

    CHAP Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol

    CIA Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability

    CIO Chief Information Officer

    CIRT Computer Incident Response Team

    CMS Content Management System

    COOP Continuity of Operation Planning

    COPE Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled

    CP Contingency Planning

    CRC Cyclical Redundancy Check

    CRL Certificate Revocation List

    CSO Chief Security Officer

    CSP Cloud Service Provider

    CSR Certificate Signing Request

    CSRF Cross-site Request Forgery

    CSU Channel Service Unit

    CTM Counter Mode

    CTO Chief Technology Officer

    CVE Common Vulnerability Enumeration

    CVSS Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    CYOD Choose Your Own Device


  • DAC Discretionary Access Control

    DBA Database Administrator

    DDoS Distributed Denial of Service

    DEP Data Execution Prevention

    DES Digital Encryption Standard

    DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

    DHE Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral

    DKIM DomainKeys Identified Mail

    DLL Dynamic Link Library

    DLP Data Loss Prevention

    DMARC Domain Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance

    DNAT Destination Network Address Translation

    DNS Domain Name System

    DoS Denial of Service

    DPO Data Privacy Officer

    DRP Disaster Recovery Plan

    DSA Digital Signature Algorithm

    DSL Digital Subscriber Line


  • EAP Extensible Authentication Protocol

    ECB Electronic Code Book

    ECC Elliptic Curve Cryptography

    ECDHE Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral

    ECDSA Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm

    EDR Endpoint Detection and Response

    EFS Encrypted File System

    ERP Enterprise Resource Planning

    ESN Electronic Serial Number

    ESP Encapsulated Security Payload


  • FACL File System Access Control List

    FDE Full Disk Encryption

    FIM File Integrity Management

    FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array

    FRR False Rejection Rate

    FTP File Transfer Protocol

    FTPS Secured File Transfer Protocol


  • GCM Galois Counter Mode

    GDPR General Data Protection Regulation

    GPG Gnu Privacy Guard

    GPO Group Policy Object

    GPS Global Positioning System

    GPU Graphics Processing Unit

    GRE Generic Routing Encapsulation


  • HA High Availability

    HDD Hard Disk Drive

    HIDS Host-based Intrusion Detection System

    HIPS Host-based Intrusion Prevention System

    HMAC Hashed Message Authentication Code

    HOTP HMAC-based One-time Password

    HSM Hardware Security Module

    HTML Hypertext Markup Language

    HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol

    HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure

    HVAC Heating, Ventilation Air Conditioning


  • IaaS Infrastructure as a Service

    IaC Infrastructure as Code

    IAM Identity and Access Management

    ICMP Internet Control Message Protocol

    ICS Industrial Control Systems

    IDEA International Data Encryption Algorithm

    IDF Intermediate Distribution Frame

    IdP Identity Provider

    IDS Intrusion Detection System

    IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

    IKE Internet Key Exchange

    IM Instant Messaging

    IMAP Internet Message Access Protocol

    IoC Indicators of Compromise

    IoT Internet of Things

    IP Internet Protocol

    IPS Intrusion Prevention System

    IPSec Internet Protocol Security

    IR Incident Response

    IRC Internet Relay Chat

    IRP Incident Response Plan

    ISO International Standards Organization

    ISP Internet Service Provider

    ISSO Information Systems Security Officer

    IV Initialization Vector


  • KDC Key Distribution Center

    KEK Key Encryption Key


  • L2TP Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol

    LAN Local Area Network

    LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

    LEAP Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol


  • MaaS Monitoring as a Service

    MAC Mandatory Access Control

    MAC Media Access Control

    MAC Message Authentication Code

    MAN Metropolitan Area Network

    MBR Master Boot Record

    MD5 Message Digest 5

    MDF Main Distribution Frame

    MDM Mobile Device Management

    MFA Multifactor Authentication

    MFD Multifunction Device

    MFP Multifunction Printer

    ML Machine Learning

    MMS Multimedia Message Service

    MOA Memorandum of Agreement

    MOU Memorandum of Understanding

    MPLS Multi-protocol Label Switching

    MSA Master Service Agreement

    MSCHAP Microsoft Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol

    MSP Managed Service Provider

    MSSP Managed Security Service Provider

    MTBF Mean Time Between Failures

    MTTF Mean Time to Failure

    MTTR Mean Time to Recover

    MTU Maximum Transmission Unit

  • NAC Network Access Control

    NAT Network Address Translation

    NDA Non-disclosure Agreement

    NFC Near Field Communication

    NGFW Next-generation Firewall

    NIDS Network-based Intrusion Detection System

    NIPS Network-based Intrusion Prevention System

    NIST National Institute of Standards & Technology

    NTFS New Technology File System

    NTLM New Technology LAN Manager

    NTP Network Time Protocol

  • OAUTH Open Authorization

    OCSP Online Certificate Status Protocol

    OID Object Identifier

    OS Operating System

    OSINT Open-source Intelligence

    OSPF Open Shortest Path First

    OT Operational Technology

    OTA Over the Air

    OVAL Open Vulnerability Assessment Language

  • P12 PKCS #12

    P2P Peer to Peer

    PaaS Platform as a Service

    PAC Proxy Auto Configuration

    PAM Privileged Access Management

    PAM Pluggable Authentication Modules

    PAP Password Authentication Protocol

    PAT Port Address Translation

    PBKDF2 Password-based Key Derivation Function 2 - 140 Mark

    PBX Private Branch Exchange

    PCAP Packet Capture

    PCI DSS Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard

    PDU Power Distribution Unit

    PEAP Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol

    PED Personal Electronic Device

    PEM Privacy Enhanced Mail

    PFS Perfect Forward Secrecy

    PGP Pretty Good Privacy

    PHI Personal Health Information

    PII Personally Identifiable Information

    PIV Personal Identity Verification

    PKCS Public Key Cryptography Standards

    PKI Public Key Infrastructure

    POP Post Office Protocol

    POTS Plain Old Telephone Service

    PPP Point-to-Point Protocol

    PPTP Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol

    PSK Pre-shared Key

    PTZ Pan-tilt-zoom

    PUP Potentially Unwanted Program

  • RA Recovery Agent

    RA Registration Authority

    RACE Research and Development in Advanced Communications Technologies in Europe

    RAD Rapid Application Development

    RADIUS Remote Authentication Dial-in User Service

    RAID Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks

    RAS Remote Access Server

    RAT Remote Access Trojan

    RBAC Role-based Access Control

    RBAC Rule-based Access Control

    RC4 Rivest Cipher version 4

    RDP Remote Desktop Protocol

    RFID Radio Frequency Identifier

    RIPEMD RACE Integrity Primitives Evaluation Message Digest

    ROI Return on Investment

    RPO Recovery Point Objective

    RSA Rivest, Shamir, & Adleman

    RTBH Remotely Triggered Black Hole

    RTO Recovery Time Objective

    RTOS Real-time Operating System

    RTP Real-time Transport Protocol

  • S/MIME Secure/Multipurpose Internet MailExtensions

    SaaS Software as a Service

    SAE Simultaneous Authentication of Equals

    SAML Security Assertions Markup Language

    SAN Storage Area Network

    SAN Subject Alternative Name

    SASE Secure Access Service Edge

    SCADA Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition

    SCAP Security Content Automation Protocol

    SCEP Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol

    SD-WAN Software-defined Wide Area Network

    SDK Software Development Kit

    SDLC Software Development Life Cycle 

    SDLM Software Development LifecycleMethodology

    SDN Software-defined Networking

    SE Linux Security-enhanced Linux

    SED Self-encrypting Drives

    SEH Structured Exception Handler

    SFTP Secured File Transfer Protocol

    SHA Secure Hashing Algorithm

    SHTTP Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol

    SIEM Security Information and Event Management

    SIM Subscriber Identity Module

    SLA Service-level Agreement

    SLE Single Loss Expectancy

    SMS Short Message Service

    SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

    SMTPS Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Secure

    SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol

    SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol

    SOAR Security Orchestration, Automation,

    Response

    SoC System on Chip

    SOC Security Operations Center

    SOW Statement of Work

    SPF Sender Policy Framework

    SPIM Spam over Internet Messaging

    SQL Structured Query Language

    SQLi SQL Injection

    SRTP Secure Real-Time Protocol

    SSD Solid State Drive

    SSH Secure Shell 

    SSL Secure Sockets Layer

    SSO Single Sign-on

    STIX Structured Threat Information eXchange

    SWG Secure Web Gateway

  • TACACS+ Terminal Access Controller Access Control

    System

    TAXII Trusted Automated eXchange of Indicator

    Information

    TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet

    Protocol

    TGT Ticket Granting Ticket

    TKIP Temporal Key Integrity Protocol

    TLS Transport Layer Security

    TOC Time-of-check

    TOTP Time-based One-time Password

    TOU Time-of-use

    TPM Trusted Platform Module

    TTP Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

    TSIG Transaction Signature

  • UAT User Acceptance Testing

    UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

    UDP User Datagram Protocol

    UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

    UEM Unified Endpoint Management

    UPS Uninterruptable Power Supply

    URI Uniform Resource Identifier

    URL Universal Resource Locator

    USB Universal Serial Bus

    USB OTG USB On the Go

    UTM Unified Threat Management

    UTP Unshielded Twisted Pair

  • VBA Visual Basic

    VDE Virtual Desktop Environment

    VDI Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

    VLAN Virtual Local Area Network

    VLSM Variable Length Subnet Masking

    VM Virtual Machine

    VoIP Voice over IP

    VPC Virtual Private Cloud

    VPN Virtual Private Network

    VTC Video Teleconferencing

  • WAF Web Application Firewall

    WAP Wireless Access Point

    WEP Wired Equivalent Privacy

    WIDS Wireless Intrusion Detection System

    WIPS Wireless Intrusion Prevention System

    WO Work Order

    WPA Wi-Fi Protected Access

    WPS Wi-Fi Protected Setup

    WTLS Wireless TLS

  • XDR Extended Detection and Response

    XML Extensible Markup Language

    XOR Exclusive Or

    XSRF Cross-site Request Forgery

    XSS Cross-site Scripting

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